Bhutan’s GNH inspires Schomberg, Germany

Posted on May 31, 2011 ·

A special Bhutan Day will be hosted in Schömberg, Germany during their second annual Week of Happiness starting July 17. The Bhutan Day will revolve around Bhutan with presentations, exhibits, dance performers and art exhibitions.

The week of happiness offers workshops, seminars on happiness and self-fulfillment and a wide array of attraction, culinary highlights, and musical acts.

Schömberg a Germany’s community that tries to measure the happiness of its people following the example of Bhutan is located in southwest Germany in the black forest.

Till Weigl a marketing manager in Schömberg said that their town has been a successful destination but the number of visitors started dropping. “Happiness” was used to market Schömberg and since Bhutan has GNH they thought it was the perfect country to learn from. “So I approached TCB and told them about our community and of course the week of happiness.”

A delegation from Schömberg visited Bhutan. The delegation from Schömberg wanted to see the GNH in practices so they visited places like schools, travel operators, hospitals, politicians, doctors, and environmentalists.

“We brought experience from Bhutan and decided that we should start something similar in Schömberg”said Till Wegil.

Their goal is now to base political decisions not only on financial issues but also on what makes people happy. In the long term they wish to establish their own form of GNH based on their role model Bhutan.

Schömberg has not formulated their domains of happiness yet. “The first step is to find out the values of Schömberg Happiness, how is it defined? What makes people happy and what is worth being measured. It will take time but Bhutan also started small, 30 years, that is why your country is our role model,” said Till Wegil.

He added that it is their ambition to promote Bhutan as a destination and cross marketing efforts have already started. Brochures on Bhutan is distributed through their office and they even put Bhutan flag on the city entrance of Schömberg.

Till Weigl said that Bhutan flag can also be seen flying in many houses in Schömberg.